About Open Talent

Open Talent is part of a broader concept called the Gig Economy which describes people working without being permanently employed. Uber and Deliveroo drivers, casual restaurant staff, temporary staff employed through an agency are all examples of this, which can sometimes be called talent on demand, or The Human Cloud.

Open Talent is one of the major forces driving the future of work today. It includes what used to be commonly known as freelancing or contracting, but now includes many new and exciting ways for people to find work using online platforms or marketplaces.

There are lots of types of Open Talent – each with their own advantages and suiting different types of work:

• Online Staffing
  A direct legal relationship between manager and worker
• Online Work Services
  Where a platform facilitates and manages a freelance workforce to deliver a specific product or service
• Crowdsourcing
  Where a business advertises a project on a platform, split into small tasks, and individual workers contribute and collaborate to finish the project
• Contests, Challenges and Competitions
  A type of crowdsourcing where a business sets and advertises a challenge through a specialist platform, people submit their own solution, and the selected winner will receives a substantial monetary prize (lesser prizes are usually awarded to finalists)

You may hear many different terms to describe Open Talent workers, including:

• Talent / Talent on Demand
• Independent Workers
• Freelancers
• Contingent Workers
• Online Contractors
• Crowdworkers

At Brilliant Minds we use the word Talent when we’re talking about Open Talent Workers, but we mean the same thing as many of the above terms.

Every Open Talent platform is different. Some are specialised, others are much more generic. Usually they share some important features, which can include:

There are lots of Open Talent Platforms out there. Check out just a few in our featured list here: